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[Our guest blogger is Madeleine McGrath, Managing Director, International, of the Tom Peters Company.]

Last weekend's German elections, won by a coalition of the Christian Democrats and the Free Democratic Party, have caused a lot of press comment about the leadership qualities of the successful candidate for the role of Chancellor, Angela Merkel.

There have been comments on her rather dour and austere demeanor. She is said to lack charisma, with her communication style described at best as calm and measured. She is not perceived as a visionary, and certainly does not have the public profile of the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. She had an uneasy relationship with the Social Democrats, her previous coalition partners. Some commentators say that the caution she learned growing up in Eastern Europe has led to a reluctance to take risks as a leader. All in all, she's scoring pretty low on leadership characteristics by my reckoning.

And yet her leadership of the German people through this troubled economic period has built for her an enviable reputation as a statesperson who is reliable and trustworthy. So much so that in a recent BBC Radio 4 profile on her successful election campaign, it was reported that many Germans affectionately refer to her as Mutti (mother).

So I wonder if there are any more general lessons for us here about what followers are looking for in their leaders in these difficult times. Is there a female leader dimension to this? Is the era of the superstar leader, both in business and in politics, firmly behind us now? Are followers looking for substance over style? If so, what does this mean for President Obama, Prime Minister Brown, and anyone leading a business today?

Two key ingredients of Excellence in any professional pursuit are to master the relevant disciplines and to apply them at every opportunity. A recent choral singing experience has left me rather thoughtful about the leadership practices most likely to develop and deliver Excellence through others.

I have been a member of a 200-person amateur symphony chorus for nearly 20 years, and during that period, the chorus's performance has steadily improved. For our latest concert, we were rehearsed by a stand-in chorus master whose approach was very different from that of the chorus master who has led us throughout my membership. Both men are equally well qualified and highly gifted musicians, and both expect equally high performance standards from their choirs. But we are used to a very critical and directive style of leadership which contrasted sharply with the stand-in master's much "softer" all round approach.

For example, he regularly took the time to tell us what we were doing well, as well as correcting us when we were getting things wrong. He was often quite generous in his praise, in stark contrast to our regular master. He challenged us to perform one of the movements in the concert from memory—no mean feat when the text is in Polish! He assured us from the first rehearsal that we were good enough to take this on, and kept reminding us of this throughout the rehearsal sequence. He even provided us with some novel support materials to help us all to practice our Polish at home.

On the day of the concert he cancelled the normal pre event "warm up" session, which is usually quite an ordeal for us to get through just before a live performance. He said he had been more than satisfied with our performance at the dress rehearsal in the morning. This is totally unheard of!

Our performance was one of our best ever and acclaimed by the critics. The movement we had learned by heart completely stole the show. But ... here's my question ... did the stand-in chorus master succeed because of the disciplines that had already been drilled into us by our regular leader? What would happen to our performance standards if we worked with the new chorus master in the long term? Would his approach result in a gradual reduction in standards?

I tried these questions out over a drink in the pub with my choir mates, and the opinion was divided 50/50. What do readers of this blog think?

In New Delhi a couple of weeks ago, I had a general in the Indian Army in the front row. I don't recall the details, but evaluating senior officers for promotion came up. I ventured, boldly, that there "was one issue that stood head and shoulders above the rest."

Namely: What is this candidate's track record—in exacting detail—in developing people. Though hardly locked in concrete, I posited that "the ONE question" might go something like this:

"In the last year [3 years, current job], name the three people whose growth you've most contributed to. Please explain in some significant detail where each was at the beginning of the year, where he or she is today, and where each is heading in the next 12 and 24 and 60 months. Please explain your development strategy in each case. Please tell me your biggest development disappointment this past year—looking back, could you or would you have done anything differently? Please tell me about your greatest development triumph—and disaster—in the last ten years. What are the 'three big things' you've learned about 'people development' along the way."

As I see it, it's not the boss' role, for instance, to make strategy. It's the boss's role to develop the best strategist—and the boss's role to ensure that the process thereof is moving along rapidly and imaginatively. And so on.

Finally, as I see it, this in some form applies to pretty much every promotion. And it even has a bearing on evaluating a non-manager on a 3-month project. That rather junior person will, for example, in several instances be responsible for accomplishing a milestone—and to do so, she must engage her team members, and engage them in a way that they go away with some learnings—that contribute a bit to their development.

What do you think about this riff?

The leadership of today's organization is largely in the hands of baby boomers, my generation. It is a small leap of reason to say that we shaped, if not created, today's turbulent economy. The greatest generation gave us an economy that provided a solid foundation to build on. They moved beyond the war, overcame the great depression, and left us an opportunity—with the promise that "You can be anything you want to be." Being kind, I would say we haven't seized that opportunity. Being honest, I would say we flat-out failed to build a similar solid foundation for those who will follow us. We have made a mess. We are not the victims of changing economic conditions, we created them. We have maybe ten years to do something about it.

I have been researching the gap between the generations' impact on the economy of the United States and have not found an acceptable metric to quantify my conclusions. There are just too many variables. One thought hits me hard, though; the next generation may be the first in a long time (ever?) that are not be better off than their parents. I think we baby boomers own that.

Because this is a blog entry, not a white paper, let me offer a few bullet points that should start a little discussion:

Continued reading A New Generation Gap...

Posted by Mike Neiss |

(1) I support the Obama pay cap for CEOs of companies on the dole.
(2) My choice would be to cap them at the rate of a 4-star general or admiral, with max seniority.
(3) If you sent all F500 CEOs and their #2s to St Elba, performance of their companies would not on average deteriorate. The "myth of the irreplaceable CEO" is just that—myth.

In working with leaders, we help them to be clear about who they are and what they stand for. The values of leaders should be easily recognized in what they do and in what they say. Yesterday, President Barack Obama was clear about what he values. I gathered that courage, hope, honesty, faith, collaboration, and unity were a few of those qualities. President Obama's actions in the past seem to reflect the values that he articulated yesterday and the expectation is that he will continue to live them out. The questions to think about today are, as a leader, what are your values? Are you living them out so that others can see them in you? As an individual, are you clear about your values and, more importantly, are you standing behind them and making decisions based on them? If you haven't thought about what you value, now would be good time to reflect on it.

While I'm at it, this one deserves a repeat, too; it's constantly on my mind:

Managers have lost dignity over the past decade in the face of widespread institutional breakdown of trust and self-policing in business. To regain society's trust, we believe that business leaders must embrace a way of looking at their role that goes beyond their responsibility to the shareholders to include a civic and personal commitment to their duty as institutional custodians. In other words, it is time that management became a profession.

â??Rakesh Khurana & Nitin Nohria, "It's Time to Make Management a True Profession," Harvard Business Review/10.08

A debate raged (more or less) in a couple of sets of Comments on "style" versus "substance." In my opinion, it's a no-brainer, style is substance for leaders. I've always taken a shine to the oft-repeated Gandhi-ism, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." I ran across a companion expression recently, from St. Francis of Assisi: "It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching."

In honor of these ideas, I have created a PowerPoint/Special Presentation, lightly annotated, which is my best effort to make these points. It comes under the generic heading of my favorite me-ism, God forbid: Hard is soft. Soft is Hard.

I'd be honored if you'd look at the Special Presentation, titled "Symbolic Behavior/Smile/Respect," and continue the earlier dialogue.

(Incidentally, our collection of probably 25+ Special Presentations is not for my seminar Clients—the special PPTs exclusively appear at tompeters.com.)

"And now for something completely different," the Monty Python gang used to promise. (I went to Spamalot this past weekend.) Forget that, I want to honor this Thanksgiving with something "completely the same."

Dwight David Eisenhower, or Ike, is certainly one of the ten greatest Americans of the 20th century—and surely ranks in the top 50 for the world as a whole. As president from 1953–1960, he got us out of Korea more or less with honor, kept the Cold War from getting entirely out of hand, had the perfect demeanor for overseeing our post-war wound-licking and rejuvenation, was an unsung civil rights hero, and this great general ended his second term by warning us of the financial and political costs of a "military-industrial complex" with too much power—talk about prescience. And all this, of course, was preceded by D-Day and the campaign that ended World War II in Europe, in which Ike, make no mistake, was the prime mover.

I'm fascinated anew by DDE, and it all stemmed from a single and simple quote from General Eisenhower, which appeared in the May 2008 issue of Armchair General, a magazine I almost inadvertently grabbed at Logan Airport: "Allied commands depend on mutual confidence [and this confidence] is gained, above all through the development of friendships." The magazine's writer reinforced Ike's self-assertion by adding, "Perhaps his most outstanding ability [at West Point] was the ease with which he made friends and earned the trust of fellow cadets who came from widely varied backgrounds; it was a quality that would pay great dividends during his future coalition command."

The quotes above are borne out in Michael Korda's extraordinary, new-ish 800-page prize-winning biography in which I am currently immersed, Ike: An American Hero. I selected a more or less random couple of chapters, covering DDE's arrival in England in 1942 and his subsequent and surprising assignment to command of Torch, the Allies first offensive action of the war and the biggest and most ungainly offensive of its kind in history to that point. (The North African landing took place on my day of birth—07 November 1942.) In the space of just 43 pages (pp. 268–311) we find these phrases describing Eisenhower:

"infectious grin and great charm" ... "nice face" ... "grin that was to become so famous" ... "got along famously" ... "goodwill was spontaneous and easily recognizable" ... "good impression that Ike had made in six weeks" [newcomer junior general to Supreme Commander, Torch, agreed upon by Roosevelt and Churchill—in, yes, just six weeks] ... "least rank-conscious of generals" ... "Men were happy to serve under Ike, even British admirals and generals who might easily have raised objections; his sincerity and lack of ceremony made it difficult, even impossible, to refuse him, and enabled him very rapidly to pull a team together." ... "Ike was gregarious, rarely had anything bad to say about anyone, and, on the surface at least, was relaxed and good natured." ... "Whereas Ike's good humor was genuine, unaffected, and affectionate, Monty's [Field Marshall Sir Bernard Montgomery] was cruel and mocking and always carried a sting."

Following successes in North Africa and Italy, Eisenhower, still a rather "fresh face" and less than two years past arriving in London as a Lieutenant Colonel, was selected as Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force Europe, tasked to invade the European continent and procure Germany's unconditional surrender. Korda explains the somewhat surprising decision:

"The Allies had generals with, perhaps, a sharper strategic vision than Ike. ... There were also generals who were more experienced at 'fighting a battle' ... But there was nobody who had anything like Ike's record of leading an alliance—always the most difficult feat in warfare. ... What is more, Ike somehow inspired people: civilians and ordinary soldiers of both nations, even cynical political figures and the always troublesome French. Something about his big grin; his long-limbed, loose American way of walking (the Kansas farm boy grown to a man); his easy, familiar way of speaking to everybody from King George VI down to privates in both armies; his lack of pretension; his evident sincerity ... They were willing to be led by him. They were willing to have him command their sons and husbands in battle. They trusted him. They were willing to die for him. ..."

(NB: Precisely these same things could be said about the two military figures I have studied most assiduously, Lord Horatio Nelson and General Ulysses S. Grant.)

(NB: When DDE subsequently ran for President of the United States in 1952, his campaign slogan was the simple "I like Ike.")

So?

So: Why must we constantly pursue "breakthrough thinking," why must we leap "out of the box," when the secrets to success and, conversely, the causes of failure—in the sense of persuading or failing to persuade groups of all sizes to pursue and achieve excellence in any and all endeavors—are almost wholly dependent upon character traits and personal characteristics that are, in fact, more or less eternal and which unequivocally transcend cultures of every flavor?

Benjamin Franklin's Parisian charm offensive of 1776–77 gained France as an American ally and changed the course of history in our Revolutionary War against England.

Nelson Mandela's extraordinary smile disarmed one and all. ("One of the greatest charm offensives in history" was one biographer's description of Mandela's amazing feat of disarming enemies and allies alike and transforming South Africa without civil war.)

Eisenhower's grin ("something about his big grin," "grin that was to become so famous") united fractious Allies and insured the effective conclusion of World War II in the European theater.

We are confronted at the moment with an economic crisis of epic proportion. There is no better time to heed the eternal lessons of Eisenhower (Franklin, Mandela, etc). Make no mistake, the keys to surviving and thriving, as individuals and organizations, will not primarily be the "out of the box" cleverness of our "strategic response," but instead individual and organizational character as expressed by the depth and breadth of relationships throughout our individual or organizational networks. Current case in point, Mr Pandit of Citigroup is as smart as they come and then some, but, unlike Ike, when he said, "Follow me"—nobody moved, except to cut and run.

American Thanksgiving is our quintessential "family holiday." Giftgiving—for once!—is not the norm, except as it is reflected in exchanges of pumpkin pies and 7-generation-old recipes for turkey stuffing. It is a day in which we even put the likes of sibling sniping on hold and simply rejoice in each other's presence. It is a day, one hopes, when we also reflect on those, numbering in the hundreds of millions, or even billions, who go to bed on less than a full stomach.

The economic crisis? Not much fun. And less fun to come. But this, too, will pass, especially if we can assiduously translate the good will around the Thanksgiving Table and the character lessons of Eisenhower and Franklin and Mandela into our minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day affairs.

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Washington Post reports that Representative Peter Roskam (R-IL), during last week's hearings, asked automaker CEOs if they'd work for a dollar a year. Chrysler's Nardelli said yes, GM's Wagoner said "I don't have a position on that today," and Ford's Alan Mulally, who made $21,700,000 last year, said, "I think I'm okay where I am."

In the immortal words of Dave Barry, "I'm not making this up."

Meanwhile CNN's Kyung Lah reported that the CEO of JAL rides public transit to work, eats in the company cafeteria, and cut his salary below that of his pilots as a personal response to layoffs and forced early retirements that JAL felt necessary to make.

A Financial Times headline on Citicorp reads: "Bank loses over half its value in past three days" "[CEO] Pandit moves to shore up his position as chief."

As disgusting [DIS-GUST-ING] as Mulally's "I'm okay" comment was-is, the Pandit headline in its own fashion affected me even more. Citi's performance is awful—and there's little or no doubt that Pandit is a major part of the problem. And hence his primary response, following an announced 50,000 plus layoff, is to try and save his own skin? (TP's considered response: "You miserable, ego-maniacal S.O.B.")

Have these guys (and they're almost all guys) no sense of shame? No sense of service? No sense of honor? No sense of sacrifice? No sense of equity?

A little online research Cathy and I did shows that none of the Big Three CEOs had any military service. I do not believe that such service is a generic answer to any particular problem. But I do believe that the uniform absence thereof is perhaps indicative of a lack of a life-as-service, servant leader ethos in general among these three? (The "no military service" piece is almost amusing, in a perverse way, in the case of Nardelli, who is a fanatic believer in some twisted notion of the "military model" of doing business—his willy nilly application of his abominable interpretation of military leadership was one of his many screwups at Home Depot. Part of Nardelli's, yes, admirable willingness to work for a buck at Chrysler may be the $200 million he took home as a prize for being fired from Home Depot.)

In summary:

Have they no shame?
Have they no sense of service?
Have they no conception of servant leadership?
Have they no soul?
Have they no honor?
Have they no ethos of sacrifice?
Have they no conception of-perception of equity?
(Did any of them go to Sunday School?)

Does it sound like I'm in a pissy mood, maybe still suffering from jetlag following my Middle East trip? Well, I am in a pissy mood, and part of it may indeed be 66-year-old-body-meets-jetlag. But part of it derives directly from Pandit and Mulally and the association of their flavor attitudes to our unfolding economic catastrophe. I've spent 40 plus years directly or indirectly on, effectively, one topic: profit through people-centered, people-obsessed leadership. Mulally and Pandit and their not insignificant ilk make me wonder if I pissed away my life in pursuit of an improbable, or even impossible, ideal?

Gestures do count. Lee Iacocca worked for a-dollar-a-year when the government gave Chrysler a life-saving loan. Wouldn't it have been great if Ford CEO Alan Mulally had driven a 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid the 520 miles from Detroit to D.C.? Hokey as hell—but he just might have gone home with a several-billion-dollar check in his pocket.

Southwest founder Herb Kelleher comes out of retirement to take the reins at GM. Lee Scott leaves Wal*Mart soon to run Ford for five years. (If Lee won't do it, we'll bring his predecessor, David Glass, out of retirement.) Mickey Drexler makes the switch from J.Crew to Chrysler. All of them know retail! All of them know the mid- to low-end mass market! All of them know that pennies matter! All three are the salt of the earth!

Leading yourself in really weird times:

1. Be conscious in the Zen sense. Think about what you are doing more than usual. Think about how you project.


2. Meet daily, first thing, with your leadership team—to discuss whatever, check assumptions. Perhaps meet again late afternoon. Meetings max 30 minutes.


3. If you are a "big boss," use a private sounding board—check in daily.


4. Concoct scenarios by the bushel, test 'em, play with 'em, short-term, long-term, sane, insane.


5. MBWA. Wander. Sample attitudes. Visible but not frenzied.


6. Work the phones, chat up experts, customers, vendors. Seek enormous diversity of opinion.


7. "Over"communicate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


8. Exercise—encourage your leadership team to double up on their exercise.


9. Underscore "excellence in every transaction."

In 1987, I wrote a book titled Thriving on Chaos. Miraculously (for sales, at any rate), it was officially published on the day of the stock market crash of '87, at the time the most severe in decades.

Once again, we are apparently confronted with a hefty dose of "chaos"—or, at least, the prospect of a substantial period of sub-standard growth. (NB: Managers under the ripe old age of 50, more or less, have never experienced, in the role of managers, significant and sustained economic disarray; the brutal recession of the early '80s—marked by unemployment in excess of 10 percent, interest rates in excess of 20 percent, and inflation stuck in the mid-teens—was the last of this sort.)

My speakers bureau sent me an urgent request for a description of remarks I might make on the issue of thriving on, or at least surviving amidst, the current chaos—seems as though that's what their clients are suddenly, and understandably, asking prospective speakers to tackle.

I was limited to a couple of hundred words, which I enjoyed writing (in the best sense of the word "enjoy") and thought I'd share them with you. There is hardly profundity here, but I'll pass it on anyway. In fact, there are two short pieces, as follows:

[The next two blog posts are the 'two short pieces' Tom is referring to. -Ed.]

While many businesses will fail amidst the current economic crisis through no fault of their own, some will survive in spite of the odds—and a few will surprise by turning a messy situation into economic-competitive advantage. The requisite winner's attitude is expressed by former Ritz-Carlton chief Horst Schulze, commenting on his decision to launch his new high-end hotel business, Capella, despite the market madness: "I do not accept the explanation of a recession negatively affecting the [new] business. There are still people traveling. We just have to get them to stay in our hotel." And, indeed, getting an "unfair share" of "what's left" is near the heart of the matter. Schulze's remarks also remind us that instant, mindless cutting of R&D or training or salesforce travel in the face of a downturn is often counterproductive—or, rather, downright stupid. Tough times are in fact golden opportunities to get the drop, and the longterm drop at that, on those who respond to bad news by panicky across-the-board slash and burn tactics and moves that de-motivate and alienate the workforce at exactly the wrong moment.

Tough times indeed require tough and unpleasant decisions—but thriving, not just surviving, is an option for those who mix wisdom and boldness of leadership with transparency and maximized employee involvement and engagement. Without suggesting that there is anything humorous about the pain that bad times cause, one can say that "this is when it gets fun" for truly talented and imaginative leaders at all levels and in businesses of every sort and size!

General Dwight David Eisenhower did the impossible. No, not the successful D-Day landing. Or the subsequent march to Germany. His "impossible dream"—come true—was to keep the Allies(?) from killing each other long enough to kill the bad guys!

And General Eisenhower had a secret: "Allied commands depend on mutual confidence; [this confidence] is gained, above all, through the development of friendships."

Armchair General (May 2008) traces the origins of this mystical Eisenhower trait: "Perhaps his most outstanding ability [at West Point] was the ease with which he made friends and earned the trust of fellow cadets who came from widely varied backgrounds; it was a quality that would pay great dividends during his future coalition command."

Another video from Skillsoft makes its appearance on our site today. We frequently get asked for Tom's definition of leadership, and, in this video, he addresses the topic for nearly four minutes. The essence can be found in this quote from Robert Altman's lifetime achievement Oscar acceptance speech: "The director allows an actor to become more than they've ever dreamed of being."

Tom Peters on the Definition of Leadership from Tom Peters on Vimeo.

[If you'd like a PDF transcript of Tom's message, you can download it here: Definition of Leadership]

The deal is, we've been told, that CEO pay is so high because demand for the 9-sigma talent of these Water Walking Wonders, so very beyond your and my shriveled imaginations, wildly exceeds supply when it comes to the 500 jobs as Fortune 500 CEOs. I contend that there are exactly 500 Guys (almost all guys, hence I can safely use the term) who believe that line of reasoning—namely the 500 CEOs of the F500 companies. (I guess I could also throw in the heads of the biggest search firms, who unearthed many of these so-far-beyond-the-pale dudes, which perhaps puts the total at 505 True Believers.)

The Inspiring Invincibles! Chuck Prince (Citigroup, formerly head of)! Stan O'Neal (Merrill Lynch, formerly head of)! Angelo Mozilo (Countrywide, formerly head of)! Tough cookies, each one. And yet, somehow, on their watches, The Three Geniuses allowed their firms, through grotesque negligence—maybe silliness or Theaters of the Absurd would be better words if the stakes weren't so high—to get into positions in which tens upon tens of BILLIONS of greenbacks had to be written off from their books of account. Dodger, my 5-year-old Aussie, could have done a better job. (He could have bitten anybody who tried to make a $500K loan to someone who had never had a job or paid a bill and signed his name with an "X"; and peed on the pants of any 22-year-old University of Chicago PhD who said, "With my clever algorithm I've designed what's called a 'derivative'—it'll make risk a thing of the past." Yes, had Dodger bitten and peed on schedule, the likes of Citigroup would be ten or twenty billion ahead of their current position.) But, since the demand is so strong for the 500 different-from-mere-vice-presidents- Monumental-Management-Marvels, and the supply is so short, The Three Geniuses, on the basis of "Upside Potential," were able to chalk up about a half BILLION buckaroos on their pay stubs over the last five years, while busily installing the tools necessary for Global Economic Meltdown. Well, I guess that means they're "excellent" at something. Isn't there some line about wool & eyes & pulling? (In most cases, their pay deals, especially the parts about "if you turn out to be an idiot, we'll pay you a king's ransom to clean out your desk," were effectively set before they set foot in the executive suite. Wow, I wanna piece of that action!)

Then, across the sea from our Miracle 'Merican Marvelous 500 uber-Managers (demand waaaay exceeds supply, remember), sits the chief of France's Société Générale, or SocGen. (How about "sock shareholders"?) Somehow or other, yup, "somehow or other," on his continuing watch, a 31-year-old trader with a penchant for math and a knack for writing code managed to evade "controls" and "sneak" $74 BILLION worth of exposure onto SocGen's balance sheet; it has taken an almost $10 BILLION loss to clean up the mess—for now. But in the future, the Big Boss, a/k/a "the genius," promises "tighter controls." (The saving grace here is that the laddie who scored the seventy-four bil is named Kerviel. I keep thinking "Evil Kerviel," after the late lamented Evil Knievel. Unfair! Evil Knievel had a far, far better sense of "risk assessment" than our superduperstar Banker Bigwigs—may I not be damned for in any way besmirching Mr Knievel's name and spirit.)

More on the topic of "genius," the short supply thereof: Big mergers and acquisitions, negotiated by Big People, have a pretty much guaranteed habit of Going South, destroying value, statistically, perhaps 80% of the time—give or take a bit, depends on whose research you read. But in that Rarified Air of the 500 Top Talents, ever-short-in-supply-because- they're-so-so-much-better-than-you-or-me-or-even-their- #2-in-command, it is clear (to the 500, that is) that through their Unique Genius (they can see Farther Ahead than you or me), they can move beyond others' mistakes and consummate marriages that make money. No worries. But then there was the headline, the most recent of the many of its kind, on 29 February as I recall, that reported Sprint's taking a $29.5 BILLION write-down following its Ingenious Acquisition (had to be, made by one of the 500 Horsemen—of the apocalypse?) of Nextel. Thirty BILLION later, we learn from the CEO that there will be "significant change" and that he intends to "improve execution." Dodger-the-dog could have told him that—smart dogs can attain a vocabulary of 200 or so understood words, and that's about 190 more than the "genius" who made the Sprint-Nextel deal. In fact Mr Big's vocabulary was but a single word, as far as I can make out, uttered over and over (and over) again: "Synergies, synergies, synergies, I smell synergies. My synergies in and of themselves are majestically synergistic." I suspect he said that when announcing the deal—c'mon, Tom, you know he said that without reading the transcript. Well, I smell something, but I will spare you because this is a family-friendly Blog. And while on the subject of odor, there's absolutely no need to go back in history two years (but I will, as I'm in that sort of mood at the moment) and remind one and all that, in pursuit of "synergy, synergy, synergistic synergy," the Fabled Bosses of DaimlerChrysler (one, Jürgen Schrempp, was considered Europe's Jack Welch!) managed, after their "merger of equals," to lose market cap at the rate of $10,000,000 per ... DAY ... for nine years.

Speaking of Mr Welch, his boy Bob Nardelli, given his GE birthright and thence Automatic Excellence, decided he belonged in the "Top One" in pay package ranks—his board demurred, demand didn't exceed supply quite that much. So Bob took his couple hundred mil "getoutttahere" "separation pay" packet from Home Depot right before the home improvement market tanked, and ran off to save Chrysler, post-demerger. (Wanna buy a bridge in Brooklyn ...) And while on the topic of high-profile, always Excellent GE alums: Airbus was a bunch of "big dream" idiots—delay after delay after delay in getting the A380 launched. (Launched it now is, and a helluva sight to see, as I did in Sydney about 10 days ago.) But with a former GE superduperstar in control, James McNerney, fresh from messing up 3M's innovation machine with an imagination-free six-sigma diet, Airbus rival Boeing's systems would be go. No worries. Genius in charge. Whoops. Boeing's Dreamliner, the 787, has, like a flash, or sinking rock is more like it, gone from almost fit-to-fly, not like the damn French-German machines that are now flying, to Nightmareliner, suffering delay after delay after delay after delay. (With further delays promised.) And then there was the one last week about Boeing losing the hundred bil or so Air Force tanker order—that one might be reversed, not by that old "GE [free market] magic," but by a bunch of irate Dobbsean (as in Lou) Congresspersons determined to put brakes on this "free trade crap."

Well, perhaps I should cry "uncle." Maybe those headhunters have got it right. I suspect the supply of guys capable of the likes of losing $10,000,000 per day, nine years running, while simultaneously giving sold-out lectures on "the DaimlerChrysler Way," is indeed pretty short.

Give me a break. These 500 "perfect fits," "unique beings" are doubtless pretty swell fellas, but they are also as mortal as you and me, and clearly less savvy about the Real World than the taxi driver who took me across Boston yesterday. "Stupid loans," he declared, unbidden, summing up the Trillion Dollar (or so) sub-prime mess in two words. Chuckie (Prince, recall), Angie (Mozilo) ... hear that? (And the cabbie didn't charge me the $100 million plus that Countrywide's Angie is scheduled to nick if and when Bank of America closes the deal to buy his company—the B of A, fresh from its own write-down, is, of course, pursuing "synergies, synergies, synergistic synergies.")

I shall say no more. For example, I shall not mention the billionaire next door, here at the bottom of Beacon Hill in Boston. Come on, Peter! (Lynch, Fidelity.) The gazillionnaire really needed free event tickets from the people whose portfolios he evaluated? (He and Fidelity were just fined for so doing.) I coulda directed him to a legit ticket broker, from SF, who's been taking good care of me for decades.

I am ... still ... a dyed-in-the-wool-capitalist-pig-free-trader. I don't want The Law to muzzle exec pay. But I would like common sense to prevail, or at least make the occasional appearance. The 500 Fortune 500 CEOs are no more flawless, genius, etc., than my dog Dodger, who, trust me, via his own sort of Excellence, can reverse the tide and part the waters by producing a fart that carries on the wind from Tinmouth VT all the way to Wall Street.

Dodger is my inspiration!
It's good to be back on the farm!
(Whoops, off to Johannesburg in a few hours!)

Someone at the New York Times noticed that our friend and constant commenter Trevor Gay has something to say about good bosses and bad bosses. The article is here and Trevor's list of the good and the bad (what, no ugly?) is over here. Congrats, Trevor, from all of us at tompeters.com.

Add to your vocabulary: "DNK."
And thank the American intelligence services.

"DNK" is a new addition to the intelligence family, apparently following the Iraq WMD "intelligence" fiasco.

DNK?
Do Not Know.

In the past, the intelligence services were loath to admit that they didn't know something; their remit is to know things, not to not know things.

But now, if you DNK and say you DK, well, you end up in DDD (deep doo-doo).
(FYI, "all this" and more led to the recent re-assessment of Iran's nuclear program—but the DNK bit was apparently a big part of the new approach.)

My post, however, is not about national intelligence collection. Instead it is about you and me and our frequent "intelligence failures." And a plea that we enter "DNK" into our language. Bosses and "brilliant" staffers are very prone to falling into this trap. The boss thinks "I'm supposed to know that"—and is loath to admit that he doesn't. He seldom lies outright, but he is very inclined to obfuscate his ignorance. So, too, those "brilliant" staffers who are paid large sums to be brilliant, not to not know.

Tip of the day: When you "don't know," add this to your vocabulary: "I don't know." Maybe as enlightened bosses we can add, "What are our DNKs here?" We can, and should, make it a positive, worthy of praise, to say "DNK" when we DNK.

I'm almost apologetic for posting—I'd love to leave Mike Neiss' "Embrace the Mess?" at the top for a long run. Still, here are a few tidbits ...

The New York Times Sunday editorial [11.25.07] on what's wrong with the health care system in the U.S. and how to fix it was thought provoking. The system is a mess—a rather complex mess at that. Contrary to what we'd believe from the simple sound-bite solutions the politicians are offering us, it is a problem that has to be addressed at many different levels of a mind-boggling maze. There seems to be a real reluctance to acknowledge this complexity.

It made me think of how many of my clients want to attack their business problems as if they were playing checkers, when in reality, their business is more like a three-dimensional chess game. Every move at the executive level has implications throughout the organization and, eventually, the marketplace. The impact of these moves can be subtle and often take a significant period of time before they surface. By then, the cause and effect relationship is often not recognized.

Many of the executives I deal with are linear thinkers.

Continued reading Embrace the Mess?...

Posted by Mike Neiss |

I ran on so long in that last post that I obscured the basic point. Clever "human resources" programs that take into account the "new realities" concerning Gen X or Chinese competition or Web 2.0 are not the basis for creating "competitive advantage through an excellent workforce." The "great secret" to "people excellence" is "treat people with manifest respect and appreciation and trust, and give them a chance to express the best in themselves and dramatically broaden their horizons"—and "the rest" will take care of itself for Gen A or Gen B or Gen X or Gen Boomer.

Few people read more business books than our friend Todd Sattersten over at 800-CEO-READ. So when he takes the time to pick THE five that every executive should read, well, we listen. And not just because we wholeheartedly agree with including the third book on his list (an, ahem, excellent choice).